Blogprompt 5

What do you think? Is Christmas sustainable? How would it all work in a changed world?


Or should all the 'do-gooders' leave our festivals alone!!!!

Christmas is not sustainable and there is a lot of waste associated at Christmas time. There is excessive level of waste involved in packaging (mainly for the christmas presents). In Britain the amount of waste during the Christmas period account up to 400,000 double decker buses (http://files.recycleworks.co.uk/files/Festive%20Facts!.pdf). This includes 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging getting wasted and 4,200 tonnes of aluminium foil wasted as well(http://files.recycleworks.co.uk/files/Festive%20Facts!.pdf). What is even more staggering is the fact that 90% of the packaging that is recyclable used in the Christmas period is actually thrown away without being recyclable.

Christmas is also a very greedy and self indulgent time of year. This can be seen in the fact that children receive many presents and huge quantities of food are eaten. The fact that Christmas could be associated with two sins (even though it was originally a religionist event) of gluttony (amount of food eaten) and greed (amount of presents children receive) could be seen as fairly shocking for christions. For example most children don't go to church Christmas day but open presents and will expect to receive expensive presents.

Christmas was orginally a religionist event, however most families now in the UK are not religist however still celebrate christmas due to it being in are cultural. In conclusion though Christmas is an important time of year for families across the world. This is because it's when families all get together and celebrate Christmas and is often the favourite time of year for children. These are the reasons why i would keep Christmas largely the same, with the exception being trying to strongly encourage more people to use less packaging and recycle more particularly at Christmas time.

Reference list:
http://files.recycleworks.co.uk/files/Festive%20Facts!.pdf
http://www.makingthishome.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/christmas-waste.jpg

Blogprompt 4

To what extent do the best selling UK newspapers cover stories related to serious issues? To what extent would you think that it is their role to do so? In your opinion does the tabloid media and 'low budget entertainment' (reality shows, soaps) have too much power and influence in this country?

The best selling newspapers are mainly tabloids such as 'The Sun' which don't address/focus on serious issues in detail but more more sports, celebrities, reality tv shows etc. This is likely because many people reguard the serious issues as not very entertaining, don't care or simply don't understand them. As shown in the Audit Bureau of Circulations 2009 more serious newspapers such as the 'Guardian' or 'The Independent' are not included in the top six best selling newspapers. This does show that a lot of the nation arnt interested in serious issues. Also though it could be down to the fact that tabloid newspapers are much cheaper to buy for example 30p for 'The Sun' whereas is about a pound for 'The Independent' on a sunday.

It is quite worrying to see that tabloid newspapers sell the most as this results in that newspaper having a lot of power over the nation and too much influence over the nation. This also means that many people in this nation have a lack of knowledge on more importent issues such as climate change. This is likely to mean issues such as climate change get worse as people will not improve their actions to help stop climate change etc.

In my opinion though tabloid newspapers shouldn't need to cover serious issues as the person buying that newspaper is likely to not be interested in that issue, and in covering these issues this could result in that person buying a competitor newspaper. The more serious newspapers such as 'The Guardian' and 'The Independent' etc should cover all serious issues in their newspaper.

In conclusion tabloid newspapers, low budget tv (x factor etc) and celebrities do have too big an influence/power on the nation. Although i do feel that the person buying this newspaper wouldnt buy a serious newspaper even if there were no tabloid newspapers as they wouldn't find these newspapers entertaining enough. This is why i would suggest that taboild newspaper cover less serious issues with other newspapers covering the serious issues.